Comet in Moominland
Read Comet in Moominland Online
Authors: Tove Jansson
Tags: #General, #Fantasy, #Action & Adventure, #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Juvenile Nonfiction, #Family, #Classics, #Moomins (Fictitious Characters), #Comets, #Children's Stories; Swedish, #Swedish Fiction, #Misadventures
PUFFIN BOOKS
Comet in Moominland
Tove Jansson was born in Helsingfors, Hinland, in 1914. Her mother was a caricaturist who designed 165 of Hinlands stamps and her father was a sculptor. She studied painting in Hinland, Sweden and France, and subsequently became a book illustrator. she lived alone on a small island in the gulf of Hinland, where most of her books were written.
Tove Jansson died in June 2001.
Others books by Tove Jansson
FINN FAMILY MOOMINTROLL
MOOMINLAND MIDWINTER
MOOMINSUMMER MADNESS
TALES FROM MOOMINVALLEY
Tove Jansson
Comet in Moominland
Translated by Elizabeth Portch
PUFFIN BOOKS
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL
, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL
, England
First published as
Kometjakten
1946
This translation published in Great Britain by Ernst Benn Ltd 1951
Published in Puffin Books 1967
33
Copyright 1946 by Tove Jansson
This translation copyright 1951 by Ernest Benn Ltd
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-141-32643-6
CONTENTS
Which is about stars with tails.
Which is about how to manage crocodiles.
Which is about the meeting with Snufkin and a terrible experience with a giant lizard.
Which is about the underground river and rescue by a Hemulen.
Which is about the adventure with the Eagle and the finding of the Observatory.
Which is about the Village Stores and a party in the forest.
Which is about a Hemulen's stamp-collection, a swarm of grass-hoppers and a horrible tornado.
Which is about a coffee-party, the flight to the cave and the arrival of the comet.
Which is about the end of the story.
CHAPTER 1
Which is about Moomintroll and Sniff following a mysterious path to the sea, pearl-fishing, the discovery of a cave and how the Muskrat avoided catching a cold.
T
HE
Moomin family had been living for some weeks in the valley where they had found their house
*
after the dreadful flood (which is another story). It was a wonderful valley, full of happy little animals and flowering trees, and there was a clear narrow river that came down from the mountain, looped round Moominhouse and disappeared in the direction of another valley, where no doubt other little animals wondered where it came from.
One morning - it was the morning that Moomintroll's pappa finished building a bridge over the river - the little animal, Sniff, made a discovery. (There were still plenty of things left for them to discover in the valley.) He was wandering in the forest when he suddenly noticed a path he had never seen before winding mysteriously into the green shadows. Sniff was spellbound and stood gazing at it for several minutes.
'It's funny about paths and rivers,' he mused. 'You see them go by, and suddenly you feel upset and want to be somewhere else - wherever the path or the river is going perhaps. I shall have to tell Moomintroll about this, and we can explore it together, because it would be a bit risky for me to go alone.' Then he carved a secret sign on a tree-trunk with his pen-knife, so that he could find the place again, and thought proudly: 'Moomintroll
will
be surprised.' And after that he scooted home as fast as he could so as not to be late for lunch.
Moomintroll was just putting up a swing when Sniff got home. He seemed very interested in the mysterious path, and directly after lunch they set off to have a look at it.
Half-way up the hill on their way grew a clump of blue-trees covered with big yellow pears, and of course they couldn't get past that without Sniff deciding that he was hungry.
'We'd better only take the windfalls,' said Moomintroll, 'because mamma makes jam from these.' But they had to shake the tree a little so that there
were
some windfalls.
Sniff was very pleased with their haul. 'You can carry the provisions,' he said, 'because you haven't got anything else to do, have you? I'm too busy to think about things like that when I'm the Path Pioneer.'
When they reached the top of the hill they turned and looked down at the valley. Moominhouse was just a blue dot, and the river a narrow ribbon of green: the swing they couldn't see at all. 'We've never been such a long way from home before,' said Moomintroll, and a little goose-fleshy thrill of excitement came over them at the thought.
Sniff started to snuffle about. He looked at the sun, felt
